The Halloween Pumpkin Trail was a success, we think we had about 2,000 people and we raised roughly £4,000. Plots were decorated, cakes, mulled wine, soup and hot dogs were sold and everyone seemed to be supportive of the allotments.
Here are some of my photos.
Because my menu plan begins on Saturday, a lot of whether my food week is successful depends on how the weekend goes. Fortunately, I had a good weekend full of energy and enthusiasm for food, cooking and food prep! Also after a couple of conversations about my food budget, menu planning, cooking from scratch and ‘you can’t make healthy food with so little money’. I’m been instagraming my desk breakfasts and lunches. If you read these posts with any frequency, you’ll know that I tend to eat the same breakfast and lunch all week so they won’t happen very often but if you want to follow along, you can see them in the sidebar or follow me @nicdempsey
Generally, I thought this week was pretty good, until I looked at it as a total. Dinner was completely absent on two of five evenings. Whoops! Sometimes life goes that way and overall, it was pretty good, I wasn’t not eating because I was denying myself food, I wasn’t not eating, I just didn’t eat a sit down meal with vegetables. Must try harder on the vegetable front next week!
SHOPPING
Last week of the month, I do need lots of staples but there is a lot of food in house and the fridge so I just went for olives and produce in Sainsburys and Tesco for a total of £4.03
Not much coming off the allotment.
but I was also given two patty pan squash by an allotment friend.
FOOD
Breakfast on Saturday was leftover pizza and dinner was a rice thing, this is based on the Chickpea and Spinach Rice Pilaf from Budget Bytes with some amendment and garlic flatbread.
We also had plum crumble using the gin soaked plums from the plum gin.
Sunday breakfast was poached egg on toast.
Dinner was lentil pasta bake and green beans, the pasta bake was leftover from one of last week’s dinners and green beans from the allotment that I froze in the summer.
Back to work on Monday so food for the day was rhubarb compote, yoghurt and granola.
Lunch was chickpea soup and a salad (pepper, carrot, cucumber, olives and quick pickled red onion)
For dinner I re-heated the leftovers from Saturday night, mixed them up with one of the patty pan squashes and added a poached egg.
On Tuesday breakfast was a black bean burger and cut up carrots.
I’m trying to use what’s in the freezer and there were 3 of the burgers hanging around, so I made them into a basic sandwich with three of the rolls I made last week and some ketchup. Heated in the microwave for a minute when I get to work, they make a surprisingly good breakfast and will be going on the rotation because they can be made up and frozen for breakfast/lunch when meal planning fails!
Lunch was a repeat of Monday. Dinner was a baked potato with black bean and corn taco filling and a salad.
Breakfast on Wednesday wa s a repeat of Tuesday. Lunch was supposed to be a repeat of Tuesday with a smaller potato, except I forgot the taco filling part of lunch so it was a baked potato with salad and this is why you should always bring a back up salad!
I didn’t eat dinner on Wednesday, I left work with a headache that felt like the beginning of a migraine. I took one of the new tablets given to me by the doctor and spent £2.09 on a can of diet coke and a packet of treat size fudge bars. I drank the coke, ate 4 of the fudge bars and then drank a pint of water and took a sleeping pill. This stellar example of what I eat when I have a migraine coming on was followed by bed.
12-ish hours later it was Thursday and I felt better. Breakfast was the last of the breakfast rolls and lunch was a baked potato with the right topping and salad. 
I met Christelle and Mike on Thursday evening and we shared a bread and olive and a meat platter and two bottles of wine!
Friday was a work half day, breakfast was compote, yoghurt and granola and lunch was chickpea soup. Dinner was supposed to be pizza, however, I was really busy and dinner didn’t happen, I ate a treat size fudge bar and a courgette and chocolate muffin and that was it!
Last Monday marked a year and a day since my osteotomy, so on Monday 24 October 2015, I started the day about 8.30am, by moving from my bed to my sofa via a wash and a change of pyjamas. Yes, my foot was a bit ouchy but I still think that that was nicer than having to get out of bed in the dark at 6:30am and go to work!
Having said that, the beginning of the last week was the first time I felt well and woke up knowing that everything was perfectly organised in about two months. Having a happy, productive weekend really does lift my mood.
Monday to Friday passed without much incident, I met Christelle and Mike on Thursday evening for a catch up. The last day of the work week dawned brighter than usual and for some reason I woke up convinced that it was November. November 28 will mark my fifth anniversary at work, but it wasn’t the 28 November on Friday, I was having a senior moment!
and there was a work fire drill on Friday morning.
Friday afternoon is when things got really busy. I made cake, did both food shopping and monthly ‘I just got paid shopping’ and laundry and house cleaning.
On Saturday, I decorated my plot with Halloween things…
and oversaw the ‘yucky dip’ and then the cake stall for the Halloween Pumpkin Trail, it was an amazing day, we had so many visitors and it’s reassuring to know so many people love the site and value it even if they don’t have a plot or aren’t on the waiting list..
On Sunday, I woke up at 7am, it was actually 8am but like a small child, I couldn’t get back to sleep. I arsed about at home, housework, changing all the clocks, food prep, repairing the shelves in the bathroom that were coming off the walls and finally getting around to removing all of the wax from the candles on the fireplace, it’s all looking very clean and tidy…
A late lunch with Ma and a trip to the allotments to take down my halloween stuff and pick up my cool boxes and collect possibly the last three courgettes from the allotment and that was Sunday done and I was ready to start the week again.
It doesn’t matter how much I try, I still don’t like the slide into Autumn that happens in October. This year the month was marked with ‘the cough that wouldn’t die until we realised that it was asthma and I have to take drugs for it to get better’. I also got a new boiler, some time with the nephews and my act together. The later happening all in the last two weeks of the month, when I was sufficiently well enough to be really irritated by my lack of organisation!
FINANCE
No specific tasks, just staying on track and being mindful. I spent a fortune on prescriptions this month, I would have had a better month without the various trips to the chemist but I’m still within limits.
HOME
Chest of drawers clear out. The big clothes one in the bedroom and the little ‘junk’ drawers in the living room. They just need attending to and de-cluttering. I’m re-setting this one because it’s the work of a couple of evenings. Done. I had help with the big clothes chest of drawers (thanks Ma!) and we also sorted out the boxes on top of the wardrobe and the wardrobe. Inspired, I also did the ones in the living room and the other drawers in the bedroom. So tidy…
Defrost the freezer. Planned for the weekend, so I’ll just get it done by the end of the month!
BODY AND MIND
Stretching. Every day 50% success rate with this, more towards the end of the month because I was more active and enthused about life and needed the stretch
Dealing with the cough. Done. It was asthma, there’s a lot I don’t know about this around how long I’m going to have to take the steroids and what sets it off. I have an appointment with the doctor on Monday to discuss but within two days of taking the preventative drugs, the wheezing and most of the coughing had stopped. So that I’m calling a win
ALLOTMENT
Burn one of the piles of weeds and organise the compost area (yes I have an area, it’s a mess!). It’s been too wet but it has to be done by the end of November! It’s just looking untidy now!
Get shallot sets and garlic bulbs for planting in October. We have planted some garlic but we need to do some more. Done, they didn’t have shallots so we did 150 onions and another two garlic bulbs!
Get the rhubarb up and re-sited.
Measure out the areas for shed Done, weeded and covered in weed fabric.
Sow wildflowers. Not done yet but planned for the weekend!
Dig over the empty beds, plant green manure. Half done, at the bottom end they are dug over, weeded and covered with weed fabric. The old runner bean and cucumber beds have been dug over and weeded but will need doing again and I hope to get to the old tomato and courgette beds tomorrow, I don’t want to dig up the marigolds though because they are still flowering so I may leave them and just weed around them.
Set up for Halloween Walk (lights, pumpkins, ghosts etc!). I’m doing it today as this post goes up!
Happy Friday!
We are nearly at the end of October and Halloween so if any of you are in London and fancy coming along to the Halloween Pumpkin Trail tomorrow, please do. Entrance is free and there will be lots to see/do, there are two witches grottos, a cake stall (which I will be manning from 5:30pm), a plant stall, a preserves stall, mulled wine, a raffle and at least 100 pumpkins to see! We start at 3.30pm and are open in the spooky dark until 7.30pm (bring a torch!).
How I’ve plugged the allotments, here are this weeks links….
Hillary Clinton’s debate response on abortion. Absolutely, as someone who is pro-choice, I want a culture that is accepting of all the choices around this. I absolutely support a woman’s right to have a abortion and I absolutely support a woman’s right to continue with a pregnancy and am happy to have my taxes used supporting those women either way. That’s a culture of life not death…
Our precious allotments are being destroyed. This is about Farm Terrace in Watford but I think most of it applies to the ones at Northfields too.
I support the Farm Terrace fighters because I’d fight for my plot, even though I’m a haphazard gardener. Slugs have eaten more this year than I’ve managed to grow. But when I’ve struggled with depression, when even getting out of the house seemed like the hardest thing in the world, I still sometimes walked five minutes to my plot, past the neat and flourishing allotments that shame me; past the scruffy ones that comfort me, to my higgledy-piggledy plot with its rose bed, sturdy greenhouse and pathetic tomato plants, my glorious collard greens and magnificent roses.
Five minutes there, kneeling to weed, putting my hands into soil, and my spirits lift. There are other riches there too: the businessman who arrives stressed and leaves less so; the young families who leave with children clutching sweetcorn or potatoes, now knowing that not all fruit and vegetables come wrapped in plastic; the old boys who offer advice, wanted or unwanted. Growing your own isn’t always cheaper, but it’s always better. It is one of the best counter-balances that remains to our cult of lonely, commerce-driven individualism.
When Gut Bacteria Changes Brain Function. Going with your gut may actually be a thing!
Kicking Philip Green is absurd. Here’s who MPs should be castigating. I think that Philip Green is dishonest and was wrong but I have been pointing out that he only did what he was allowed to do. I don’t understand why companies can be sold on unless they owners are up to date with their current legal obligations (like pensions!) and honestly what was the House of Commons doing while all this was happening, nothing. Actually not true, they were calling Green a shining example of all that was good about business.
What a legless mouse tells us about snake evolution. This send me off to find about about the sonic hedgehog gene. Of course is was because of an English scientist….
I’m white. working class and sick of Brexiters saying they speak for me. Quiet.
If we alter our complaints to blame foreign people it’s a different story. “I can’t get a council house because they’ve all been sold to private landlords,” gets nothing. “I can’t get a council house because they’ve all gone to bloody Muslims,” gets on the front page of the tabloids.
Abstaining from voting in the US Elections. I get it. The horror of realising that there is no one that adequately reflects your views to represent you. The thing is that you don’t change it by walking away from it, you engage, you protest and you vote for the least worst option, to prevent the worst worst option getting in. To butcher Churchill, ‘Democracy is a terrible system, except for all the others.’ It’s an imperfect system but it’s the one we have, this author clearly doesn’t understand it because otherwise she’d never do what she’s doing.
Gary Younge’s stuff on the US elections is great. This is the bit that applies to Brexit too.
“Nobody speaks up for the poor,” says Walsh, explaining Trump’s appeal to those she grew up with. “There is systemic racism but black people have advocates. Poor white people don’t. They’re afraid. They’re afraid that they’re stupid. They don’t feel racist, they don’t feel sexist, they don’t want to offend people or say the wrong thing. But for them white privilege is like a blessing and a curse if you’re poor. The whole idea pisses poor white people off because they’ve never experienced it on a level that they understand.
“You hear privilege and you think money and opportunity and they don’t have it. I understand how it works but I don’t think most people do. So when Trump says stuff, they can understand what he’s saying and he speaks to them in a way other people don’t. And then you’ve got people calling them stupid and deplorable. Well how long do you think you can call people stupid and deplorable before they get mad?”
Yes, GPs, do ask us about our weight. But please listen to our answers too. I actually have an example of this. In 2015, I caught a cold and as a consequence couldn’t stop coughing. This went on for three months, until it all came out as a chest infection which led to several sets of antibotics and a week off work. I got better but the cough didn’t really. I called the doctor who looking at my weight diagnosed GERD and gave me some pills for that. They didn’t work and at this point I was just done. Eventually, the cough died down though it did come back whenever I caught a cold, in fact I had a nasty cough before my osteotomy last year, the nurse doing my pre-opt noted it and I wasn’t allowed to take ibruprofen after the surgery. This September, I caught another cold and the cough came back but worse. I saw another doctor at the practice, who said GERD and because I was insistent that it wasn’t GERD and that I thought it was asthma, he finally (I think to get rid of me) agreed to a spirology clinic appointment. That confirmed that I do have asthma and I got a prescription for steroids which, amazingly, stopped the coughing and the wheeze in two days. If I hadn’t of insisted that I had asthma and wanted to be tested for it, I would still be coughing and miserable. I do understand that it’s difficult to work out what’s going on with someone in the course of a 10 minute appointment. However, my blood pressure is good for someone my age who is a ‘normal’ weight, I’ve had three bouts of fairly serious chest infections over the past three years, I’ve reported persistent cough that only happens when I have a cold and colds that go on for ages, I also have a prescription for an inhaler but none of the 4 different doctors at that practice thought I might have adult onset asthma, they went GERD and reluctantly I can only assume that’s because of my weight.
For the first time in a couple of months, I’m not coughing. It’s amazing the difference that getting my asthma under control has made and last week, I finally shook off the cold of death, I’m not wheezing and I’m (as much as I ever do) getting enough sleep.
What does this have to do with chickpea soup? Not much except it wouldn’t have happened unless I felt better. The truth is that I didn’t have any energy while I was full of cold and wheezing and although cooking happened, it didn’t happen with enthusiasm or creativity. Since September, I’ve been doing a form of ‘non-planning planning’ which consisted mostly of running around for 10 minutes on a Sunday night trying to work out if I had things to take to work for breakfast and lunch, followed by being exhausted and going to bed.
When Christelle and I shared a flat we talked a lot about whether or not we were in possession of the ‘mojo’ and over the past couple of weeks I have been mojo-less. However, last week, things started to look up. I knew I was feeling better because I began to get annoyed by the clutter in the flat, I started to read food blogs again and be inspired by them. This weekend, I did some actual menu planning and food prep for the week ahead, rather than running around like a headless chicken on a Sunday night trying to work out what I’m going to eat. Things are looking up, I feel like a human being again.
I’ve been having this soup for lunch this week. It’s hearty but not heavy and gently spiced. It’s a soup that gives you a cuddle and is perfect for autumn. Better still it takes about 30 minutes all in and I the ingredients are things that I usually have in the cupboard!
The original idea was from Marmalade and Me, I’ve adjusted it so it makes less and changed to accommodate what I had in the cupboard and freezer.
What
1 tblsp olive oil
2 cups mirepoix (this is my version but if you don’t have that, a small onion, a couple of ribs of celery and a medium carrot chopped up will do the job!)
2 cloves of garlic
2 tsp ground cumin
1 tsp smoked paprika
1 pint (500ml) stock
1 can of chickpeas or the equivalent weight of cooked chickpeas
1 can plum tomatoes
1 cup of frozen corn
juice of 1 lemon
How
Allotment gardening is much like anything else, you plan, you do, you revise your plan and sometimes it seems likes it’s never going to come together and you’ll spend ages doing one thing and getting nowhere and sometimes it’ll all come together.
This week was a satisfying week. I don’t think it’s much to do with our planning so much as a sunny day and the weather slowing down the weed growth. We got some stuff done and my garlic has started to shoot. We also had some produce and one lonely california poppy
This is where the long beds are going, I dug it all over and weeded, next month (hopefully) we’ll get the beds and at some point probably over Christmas when we have a car we’ll get wood chip down around them and compost and topsoil in them. I also moved the lavender that I planted at the top of the allotment, they were in the way of where we want to put the shed AND doing badly. They may not live and if they don’t we’ll try again next season but they were bigger than the rosemary when I planted them and look at that rosemary now!
This is where the shed will go, we’ll level the area with sand and lay paving stones, then add the shed and a water butt after Christmas but it’s good to get the area under fabric so it won’t need weeding between now and then.I also moved one of the rhubarb plants and I’m hoping that it’ll survive the move!
We got lots ticked off the to-do list but added a couple of jobs to the end of the list. Ma aka the ‘Queen of Weeding’, wants to tackle more of the edges of the allotment where the couch grass is invading. I also hope lay wood chip down over the raspberries, we have composted and are weeding but I want to start the next growing season as weed free as I can manage and have received lots of advice about mulching them! I also want to edge the beds in the middle of the plot because the wood chip is drifting into them.
Next week, I need to Halloween-ise my plot for the Pumpkin Walk and weed the beds where things are growing. That should keep me busy!
Time for a recap of food and spending. I’m making a concerted effort to eat some meals out of the freezer and I did some food prep by making a batch of bread rolls and a loaf of bread.
SHOPPING
I went to Lidl with Ma and spent £5.60. I didn’t take a photo of it but this is what I got:
cherry tomatoes, carrots, parsnips, red onions, butternut squash, 4 baking potatoes, plums, 2 large pots of plain yoghurt, mozerella, a pint of milk, plain flour, 2 tins plum tomatoes
Later I also bought three peppers, some pate and a tub of coleslaw which came to £3. So a total spend of £8.60.
There were two little courgettes from the allotment and lots of green tomatoes that are ripening by the kitchen window.
WHAT I ATE
We on Saturday, Ma and I had plum crisp and yoghurt for breakfast. That and a packet of crisps was all I ate for the day!
On Sunday, I had leftover saute and an egg for breakfast and then lunch at Middletons in Watford. I had steak & chips and chocolate birthday cake for pudding.
Monday’s breakfast a slice of toast. I had a cheese and cucumber roll with cut up carrots and cucumber for lunch with plum crisp and yoghurt as a ‘snack’. I had lentil bolognaise with pasta for dinner.
Tuesday was more of the same for breakfast and lunch. I came home on that night to plumbing chaos and the news that I had no heating or hot water. Joy. Wanting to cut down on the washing up and being by this point in the day just done with it, I had toast, pate and cut up vegetables. 
Wednesday’s breakfast and lunch were a repeat of Tuesday’s and Ma come over on Wednesday night to help me with the post boiler installation cleaning. She is wonderful, fortunately there wasn’t that much to do so we drank wine and had pasta and chilli for dinner. 
Thursday, we had team building, I had plum crisp for breakfast and a baked potato and chilli for lunch. After the ‘golf’ there were drinks and snacks so I didn’t eat dinner because I wasn’t hungry
I finished the week with Friday night pizza as is traditional.
This week was supposed to be prosaic and a bit dull. After last week’s coughing frenzy, I wanted a quiet, easy week and I thought that’s what I got but as it turned out, it was quite eventful, it was also the first week in ages when I felt well and got things done because I had the physical and emotional energy to do them.
Monday morning commute, honestly it was nice to be up to it.
Rainy October evenings are not fun.
Boiler replacement happened on Tuesday and Wednesday. Which meant that the cupboards either side of the washing machine and surfaces needed to be cleared on Monday night. Not pictured is everything piled up on the kitchen table! I got home on Wednesday to find the plumber having a nightmare and the news that I had no heating (not too much of a problem) or hot water (bigger problem). I do know that many, if not the majority, of the human race survives without regular access to running water, let alone hot running water and not having it for one night was a completely survivable, first world problem and once I had put the pants of perspective on, I was just grumbly about the amount of chaos that two workmen can do to one tiny, tidy flat! I kept walking into rooms and needing to re-arrange things or tidy up!
On Wednesday it was all done and my kitchen went back to the tidy, organised space it usually is although it did take me a while to work out where the thermostat was and how to programme the timer!
There was team building this week too. On Thursday, the team went to Swingers for drinks and miniature golf.
After Thursdsay I was ready for the weekend so having to get up and go to work on Friday was a bit of a let down. However, I was glad to have done a complete five day week at work so all good.
Saturday started early for a 9am eye test, good news is no change in my eyesight, so no need for new glasses, which is a relief, my glasses are not cheap!
My plan was eye test, library, home, allotment. Alas I was early for the library, so I went to Tescos, where I bumped into Sue and had a brief catch up. Then I went to the library, which opened late!
Books returned I walked home and then went to the allotment. Ma and I spent 4 hours, Ma weeded the top end and I dug over the bottom, we laid down weed fabric and I moved the rhubarb and the lavender. It was a beautiful day and there was a tiny bit of produce too! On Sunday, I got to grips with the flat. Mostly the bedroom and the living room because they are the most neglected in terms of housework. I feel much better for it.Sarah R came round for a catch up on Sunday afternoon and Chelsea won 4-0, a good end to a good week.
Happy Friday! It’s been a more eventful week, than I planned!
Me elsewhere, I’ve finally started posting on the Ealing Dean Allotment Society website. Meet the Plotholders, Volunteer Days
Women having abortions are sure about their decision. Yep.
The path to home ownership should not be inheritance. What I have been saying for ages..
Last week, there was a bit of panic at the news that a gorilla had escaped from London Zoo. The truth of what happened is typically British. This is my favourite part of the whole thing
…while Kumbuka briefly explored the zookeeper area next door to his den, where he opened and drank five litres of undiluted blackcurrant squash.
I think they’re going to agree the expansion of Heathrow and it’s wrong. Ok yes, I do have skin in the game, I’m ‘local’ to the airport and it sucks when the planes come overhead, to say nothing of the traffic pollution. But it’s not just that, why are we still planning only for the South East of England. There are (for the moment) three other countries in the Union and a whole heap of England that is just being ignored. Infrastructure development should start there. Start HS2 in the North to link those cities together, airport expansion in the middle of the country benefits most of it, so maybe Birmingham should have a bigger airport. Politicians need to think of the entire country not just London. I love my city but the country is unbalanced.
I can’t ignore the US elections so I’m putting it all here:
America’s new silent majority.
The danger that Trump is stirring up by crying ‘rigged’ I remember back in 2010 when there was no clear result as to who the government was and the negotiations between the various parties and while I was unhappy with the government we got, I was also grateful that there would be a peaceful transfer of power. I was especially grateful later in the year when it kicked off in Cote d’Ivoire after it’s general elections that November. So, either way, I’m worried about the result of the US presidential election because Trump is a man with no true appreciation of his country or its laws or the ideals, that while not always lived up to, were vital to its founding.
Speaking of which. Federal Judge Excoriates Florida’s “Obscene” “Undeclared War” on Voting Rights
I posted those earlier in the week and then on Wednesday night at the debate it got worse.
This recap is all tongue in cheek but is also seriously scary because Trump doesn’t care about anything other than himself.
It is worth remembering that Hitler was elected and Trump doesn’t care or understand the US Constitution, how the law and politics work or what kind of violence and chaos he provokes. He’s a man-child with more ego than brains.
Nic Dempsey 